


Paint

by crassenoughtocare



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Insecurity, body painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:36:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crassenoughtocare/pseuds/crassenoughtocare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee isn't the sort to let people see him without his paint on. There are a few exceptions, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint

"Gamzee."

 _"Gamzee."_

"Gamzee it you do not get your stupid indigo ass out here right now, I will come in there and beat you, so help me god."

Karkat sighed loudly and twisted the knob. The door got about halfway open before it slammed shut, tossing Karkat back into the hall.

"Shit motherfucker, calm the tits down! I ain't got my face on."Karkat hit the door as if his hand could make it open, and immediately regretted his decision.

"You nooksucking assclown, do you think I give any fucks about the state of your shitty makeup?!" Gamzee didn't reply.

"I'm coming in." This time he let his moirail open the door. He stopped, staring at Gamzee with a look reserved only for incomprehensible idiocy.

"Why do I hang out with you?" Gamzee greeted Karkat with a hug that brought him off the ground. The front of his shirt had been pulled over his head, effectively concealing his face.

"Cause you can't be all up and denying fate, my brother." Karkat returned the hug and kissed his cheek through the fabric.

"You still look like an idiot." Under his shirt, Gamzee just smiled. Karkat pulled the shirt off of his horns, knowing he would let him.

"Better." He said, pressing his lips to clean, grey skin.

\-----

  
Karkat had mentioned Gamzee was a little weird about his face paint. So naturally, Dave had to pry.

"Why not?" He stared the troll down across the table. Well, the shades made it kind of hard to have a proper stare down, but they did lend a nice effect, Dave thought. Gamzee was leaning across the table, claws leaving little scratches in the surface.

"Because, motherfucker, I don't think you all up and understand how a brother feels about his motherfucking paint." Dave blinked.

"It's make up, dude. Only chicks freak out about that." Gamzee resisted the urge to take the human by his pretty pale hair and smash his head against the table until he bled profusely. He took a deep breath, filling his mind with all the peace he could find.

"How about this." His voice was almost even in it's tone, sinister around the edges. "I'll fuckin' show you mine if you show me yours." Dave nodded, once. The chair scraped across the floor as Gamzee rose, moving to the sink. Face dripping but clean, he retuned to the table. Dave raised his eyebrows.

"You look good man. Now listen, can we stop this wh-" Gamzee silenced him, grabbing him across the table to bite his mouth, snatching the sunglasses from his face. Dave pushed at his chest, prying the other boy off of him. For a moment they regarded  each other silently, the front of Gamzee's shirt soaked with water, Dave's soon to be spotted with blood. Gamzee threw the glasses at his face. Dave caught them, slipped them on and turned, muttering as he left, bleeding, a little scared, and very confused.  


\-----

  
To be honest, she hadn't really thought about this beforehand. Impulse was a weakness of hers as of late. Emotions were still new, and Aradia never thought they had been as bright and vibrant as they were now. She had been quietly sitting in her respiteblock, just feeling the universe, working the flow of time around and in her, when suddenly a thought interrupted. Hey! She hadn't seen Gamzee in a while. Maybe they could paint the rest of the skulls or she could tell him more about his ancestor! Yes. That was a good plan.

Gamzee was pleasant, she thought. Sure, he was a little unstable, and there was that one time when she had to fight him for the bodies, but they had a connection only shared by those of an inherently morbid nature. He didn't think she was weird, and she didn't think he was a 'psycho' like most of the others did. She knocked twice, then threw open the door, beaming.

"Hey Gamzee!"  
She had .47293 seconds until the club would hit her. With ease, she bent time and out of the way. On the other side of the room was Gamzee, hands splayed over his face.

"Shit, sister! You can't fuckin surprise me like that! Coulda killed your fairy ass."

"Sorry." She smiled sheepishly, fluttering towards him. "Why are you covering your face up?" He shook his head.

"Ain't got my face on, girl. Can't let no one see me lookin' all a mess." He peered at her through fingers, watching her smile and laugh silently. "Its not motherfucking funny." That only made her laugh aloud.

"Yes it is! Gamzee, it's just paint, you look fine without it." He shook his head.

"You wear your own motherfucking paint, sis."

"Not all the time! I know I look fine without my makeup, and you do too." She tugged at his elbow. He growled. She tugged again. Slowly, he let his hands down, glaring at her darkly. Aradia smiled. Gamzee bared his teeth.

"You look nice, Gamzee." It was hard to really see his features when they were covered in paint. He had a sharp nose, high, noble cheek bones and thick eyebrows, like a younger, more attractive version of the man she had met in the bubbles. He would look better if he wasn't scowling, though. "I mean it, you have a good face." He smirked at her, showing a sliver of fangs.

"Yeah? Yours ain't so bad. Least you don't have fuckin' scars." He flopped back on the horn pile with a cacophony of honks. She sat in front of him, crossing her legs.

"I like the scars," she said, reaching out to trace them with her finger. He let out a honking laugh.

"You like the motherfucking way I got 'em?"

"No," she said honestly. "But it doesn't bother me. The dead are dead, nothing wrong with that, or struggling with yourself." She hadn't told that to Nepeta in the bubbles though. It wasn't a good idea to speak kindly of the killer when talking to the dead.

"You sure your blood runs rust? The shit you say, you  could be a subjugglator what got dropped off in peasant skin." That was a compliment, she knew, though she didn't think she would make a very good subjugglator.

"I'm positive. I can always prove it if you want." That got his attention. "But celebration of both life and death is casteless, I think. You aren't the only one with destruction in your blood." Gamzee sat forward, eyes dilated, leaving the smallest ring of almost-indigo around the pupil.

"True, sister, true." With his eyes locked on hers, he nodded at her shirt. "You mind gettin' those messy?"

"I don't mind, but I should probably keep the hoodie clean." He nodded, almost distressing in his calm intensity.

"Might want to get it the fuck off, then."

"Gamzee, don't you think that's kind of-" He cut her off.

"Ain't no funny business here. We all got bodies." For some reason, that was enough to convince her. She pulled her top over her head, gently laying it out of the way while Gamzee rifled though a drawer. He returned with jars of paint, and without a shirt. Making them even, she guessed.

"Do I need to take this off?" Aradia pulled at the strap of the undergarment Rose had insisted she start wearing. Gamzee shrugged. She unhooked it and let it slip from her shoulders, she didn't like it much anyway. He sat in front of her, scooting close so his long legs overlapped hers. Bringing his face to hers, he studied her for a few seconds before dipping his fingers in and smearing them across her cheek.

She couldn't see what he was doing, but she watched him work, fascinated with his concentration. True, he had been far better since he sobered up, but he still tended to drift, always halfway in his own head. This was fierce concentration, fingers brushing cool paint on her skin in deft strokes.

She closed her eyes and let him work, concentrating on the feeling of his hands and the occasional poke of claws. He stopped, then started again, smearing a ring around her neck, down to her chest to her breasts. The touch made her shiver but he didn't seem to notice. He was drawing lines, over her collar bone, across her chest and down her ribs, then patterns. At one point his fingers rubbed her nipples, jolting her eyes open. He looked at her, blinking as if just realizing she was there.

"Sorry sister, I got a little carried away." He looked her over, taking her in. "You look fuckin' great," he said, half muttering to himself, so close their noses almost touched. For a second she thought he might kiss her.

"Can I go look?" Her voice didn't sound like her own, low and thick.

"Yeah, yeah, shit yeah." He rose to help her up, keeping hold of her hand. The mirror was enough to just accommodate them both.

Her face was black around the edges, otherwise filled with the white image of a skull. Swirls and trails of dots decorated her, not a single mistake anywhere. He had continued the concept on her chest. White, with black bones now. Ribs, shoulders, and collarbone, all outlined and patterned with dots. He had spent particular care on her breasts, she noted, ringing her nipples with careful, minuscule, dots, surrounding the black circles that had gotten her attention. It could have been obscene.

He stood behind her, lanky and huge and not even fully grown. She didn't move when his hands slid around her hips. He said a name, an ancient one. So he had been listening to her ramble about history and subjugglators after all. The name was that of an ancient goddess of war and death, worshiped by early cults of those who would become subjugglators. It meant 'sacred woman of divine destruction'. She was probably a real woman, fearsome and admired enough to be elevated to the status of a god. She was probably Aradia's ancestor.

His fingers brushed the waistband of her pants, hooking in when she gave no protest. She let him strip her bare, realizing this step was far from a surprise to her. He removed his clothes as well, dropping it all into a pile. She knew he was memorizing her like this, drinking her in. If he had asked to photograph her, she would have let him. She had never been naked in front of someone, not like this at least. Whatever this was, it was overwhelming and raw.

She felt his bulge against her back. A decent troll would be offended at the flagrant display of uncalled for arousal. A decent troll would have been embarrassed to show such physical weakness in front of someone outside their quadrants. Problem was, neither of them were decent by average troll standards. For the first time in a long, long time, Aradia had absolutely no idea where things were going.

"Why- why don't you paint yourself like this? You, this is talent, Gamzee." He slid his hands back around her hips, the claws on his thumbs tracing her hip bones. She felt a little breathless.

"I'm a simple motherfucker. I do like to get my art on, though." Vaguely she wondered what kind of art he did regularly, but the thought didn't hold, not with his hands on her skin like that.

"Why did you do this?"

"Cause you liked lookin' at my naked face and I wanted to see what you'd look like all painted up like death. Its a trade, my tiny  winged sister. And you were fuckin' meant for this shit. You got death in your bones. I can feel it." For a long while they stared at each other in the mirror. She loved when he talked like that, just opened up his mouth and poured out darkness. Wordlessly, he bent to kiss her neck. His lips came back smeared with maroon. Whatever facade of simple friendship there had been left was gone.

Behind her, Gamzee kissed her neck again, lower, her shoulder, the nape of her neck and down her spine until he was kneeling. She turned to face him, lowered herself to his level and let him pull her close. Kissing Gamzee didn't feel like kissing Sollux, and was nothing like kissing Equius. He was all need and tongue and teeth and shaky lust that made her ache. When his fingers first dipped into her she was hyper aware of his claws, but quickly found that they didn't hurt, not when she was busy shuddering and making quiet sounds against him. Eventually he pushed her back and then into her, leaving them both unable to move or think for a moment, completely absorbed in the feeling of each other.

When they finished he was smeared with paint, pressed on top of her with indigo and maroon staining her thighs and his groin. Aradia thought maybe she should say something, comment on what just happened, but instead she cleaned the smudges of paint off his face and lips, while he played with her curls. She ached between her legs, but it was a good ache, he hadn't hurt her like she knew he could. Finally he pressed their foreheads together, eyes shut.

"We got fuckin' carried away, sis." She nodded, stroking his hair. He laughed a little, a rasping chuckle that she sort of liked.

"I don't mind, you know. We were bound to get carried away at some point. You and I especially, I think." He nodded, shifting down to rest his head on her chest.

"I didn't fuckin’ hurt you, right?"

"No, not at all really."

"I kinda motherfuckin’ wanted to. Didn't want to up and scare you, so I kept my teeth to myself."

"That's very sweet of you Gamzee, but you can bite me if you want." She tensed as his mouth immediately found her shoulder, fangs piercing her skin so he could tongue the blood that welled up. It hurt, but she found herself laughing.

"See? I told you I'm a rustblood." He laughed with her, giving her a matching mark on her other shoulder.

"Looks like it" He shifted off of her, turning her over to bite the back of her neck. Without much warning he pushed into her again, marking her skin until he came, taking care to finish her off with his hand.

"Anyone ever told you, you make the sweetest sounds I ever heard?" She shook her head, laying back on the floor as he curled around her. "Not that I fuckin' heard anyone else, you still sound the best." Aradia reached up to trace his scars, brushing her hand against his skin, still clean and grey.

"So will you be going out like this more?" He shook his head, idly tracing his fingers through the ruin of her paint.

"Nah, a brothers gotta keep up his appearances, you get me? Just you and Karkat, I'll let you see me without my face on." Aradia nodded, moving into kiss him, knowing he was putting a sort of trust in her, letting her see him when he felt vulnerable.

Of course he still had his face painted more often than not, but sometimes he would clean it off, just for her.


End file.
